Friday, 29 March 2013

This is going to be like a lifestyle post and not really related to beauty/fashion. For the past month and a half or so, I've been trying to lose weight and tone up my body for the summer seeing as I am going on sunny holiday with my best friends in July and I'm pretty sure we'll be wearing bikinis/swimsuits half the time. So I'm just going to share some of what I've been doing to be more healthy and lose fat.

Do fun exercise that isn't monotonous. I think what I hated about exercise is that it can be so boring and repetitive which just made me not want to bother at all. But I've fallen in love with Just Dance for the wii, it is my method of exercise. I play Just Dance 3 at least 4 times a week, always trying to beat my high scores and it really makes you work up a sweat if you put a lot of effort into your dancing. Apparently an hour of Just Dance (about 15-17 songs) can burn about 350 calories! For my toning and strength training, I do pilates watching Blogilates on Youtube, it's free and she has sooo many great videos!

Cut down/completely get rid of the "bad" foods out of your diet. This has to be the hardest for me, if you know me you'll know that I have such a sweet tooth, I'm literally in love with sweets. So I've made a calender in which I cross out the days I've gone without buying sweets and without buying crisps. I originally gave up crisps for lent, so I've lasted 6 weeks without crisps so far and surprisingly I'm not missing them at all. I've only done 2 weeks without sweets though, something I have realised is that sweets are evil to your body, the refined excess sugar is what gives you that pouch of fat at the bottom of your tummy :(

Pay more attention to what you put in your mouth. Myfitnesspal is website and mobile app on the iPhone in which you calorie count basically, it has a huge database with pretty much every brand and food out there and you just input what you eat on a daily basis. Although it's not particularly good to obsess over your calorie intake, it's good for seeing how many grams of sugar and saturated fats you are having each day and it might surprise you how it all adds up, like it did me.

Don't weigh yourself too often. I think it's important to know that the lbs aren't just going to drop off straight away, it's important to be patient. Muscle also weighs more than fat, so as you're burning fat you could be gaining muscle and so you're weight is more likely to remain the same. I think your appearance is more of what counts, look at the inches.

Don't snack too much and drink lots of water. I had a tendency to snack whenever I felt hungry. Stupidly I was mistaking what I thought was 'hunger' and it was actually thirst, so now whenever I think I'm hungry I drink like a glass of water first and then see how I feel.

Have a cheat day from time to time. It's all well and good healthy eating but for me the less "bad" food I eat, the more I absolutely crave food like pizza, KFC, cake and McDonalds, so like once a week I let myself have a cheat day, just in order to stay sane :)

So far I've lost 4.7kg which is 10lbs and I've lost an inch of my tummy and an inch and a half off my hips. I am kind of plateauing at the moment though, my weight dropped pretty quickly at first but now it's more gradual which I don't mind.

My goal is to lose 3.3kg more meaning I would've lost 1.25 stone in total.

Saturday, 16 March 2013

Seeing as spring is fast approaching us on the 20th March (which is also my mum's birthday), I thought I'd do a spring inspired outfit. I think spring has the nicest colour palette, like I love all the pastel shades that are around. The heeled Chelsea boots from Missguided are definitely my favourite piece in this outfit, I wish I could wear heels in the daytime though but I feel like I can only brave them at night. I paired them with cute little cream pop socks from Topshop which have been pretty on trend recently. Zara's infamous Office City Bag is close second favourite as it is beautifully classy and completes this girly look.

Also seeing as it has been announced that Google Reader is sadly going to die in July, feel free to follow me via Bloglovin instead and also on instagram :)

Wednesday, 13 March 2013

It's time for a mini review. Never had I been keen on using cleansers, I always found them to be quite heavy on my skin and make it a bit oily. But then my manager told me I had to try out this product and I'm so glad I picked it.

How I use the product:

I know the convection of a lot of cleansers is to use it to clean off your makeup but for some reason I don't like the idea of getting the muslin cloth dirty so I tend to only use it in the mornings. For those who may not know, with a hot cloth cleanser (such as the renown Liz Earle Cleanse and Polish) you lightly massage it into your skin "to stimulate the skin and loosen dead skin cells" and then you run the muslin cloth under hot/warm water and in circular motions wipe the cleanser away.

Pros:

- it leaves your skin feeling soft, squeaky clean, refreshed and kind of like taut, in a good way of course.

- the consistency of it is great, it has a really nice texture and doesn't feel like it's running off your face or anything as it's thick and creamy.

- the whole Pure range really prides itself in the fact that their products are made from mostly natural ingredients, stating that at least 95% of the ingredients are in fact natural and homegrown. As well as their "bee friendly project", which is explained in full in the photo above AND they don't test on animals which is always fabulous.

- it's unscented which I personally love, it has a nice pleasant aroma that's not overpowered by synthetic or extremely fruity smells.
- being from Marks & Spencer it's a really accessible product as most major towns/cities (in the UK that is) seem to have a Marks & Spencer. If this range isn't in your nearest store then you can always order it to be delivered to your store for free.

- suitable for nearly all skin types pretty much, especially oily/combination skin as it doesn't make you feel greasy or anything.
- the price is pretty impressive considering you get 200ml for only £9.50 which is well worth it

Cons:
- the pump dispenser is slightly annoying for the consistency and texture, when I first tried to use the cleanser, nothing would come out so I had to unscrew it and swirl it around a bit before it would work properly. I can imagine when it starts to run out, I'm going to have to just ditch the pump and hit it out.
- if you do like something fruity and scented then this isn't that unfortunatelyScore: 5 out of 5, definitely recommend trying this out :-)

I always love seeing other people do this post for some reason, so I thought it was time to share mine!

My bag is from Accessorize and I got it for Christmas, when I did pick it out for my Christmas list I never expected it to be so popular as five other people at my school have this bag, two of them in this same colour and three in different -.- but I think it's because it's a very reasonable price at £39 for excellent quality, so it's understandable.
In sixth form, I study Maths with Statistics, Biology and Chemistry which requires me to bring in a text book for each lesson which is annoying because I hate having a heavy bag. The A5 notebook is from Wilkinsons and was an incredible bargain of 10p and so I use it write my rough notes before I write them in neat in my pukka pad. I don't really know why I carry around a spare house key as well as my normal house key on my car keys because I'm 99.9999% sure I'll never not have my car keys since I drive to and from school everyday but I really would hate to be locked out the house for some mad reason! I don't tend to take my makeup bag to school, just because I can imagine I'd never use it as I don't really have time to ever top up my makeup and it would just take up more space as well. All I take is my powder in case I'm having an oily T-zone day, ya know. On a normal non-school day, I pretty much take these exact same things minus the textbooks/notebooks, calculator and ruler. Except I might chuck in a random book that I would be currently reading, which at the moment would be Paper Towns by John Green.